Funds for culture and events

Details of a financial package worth £65 million for culture and major events have been confirmed by the Culture Secretary Angus Robertson.

The split of the funding is as follows:

• for cultural businesses, organisations, venues and independent cinema support and grassroots venues - £31.5 million
• National Performing Companies (for Christmas losses and touring fund re-purposing) - £2 million
• Freelancers - £10 million
• Events sector - £19.8 million
• Museums, galleries and heritage - £1.7 million

Culture Secretary Angus Robertson said:

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is once again causing disruption and uncertainty in the culture and events sector, who have already been hit so hard by its impact.

“We have been engaging with the sector about the impact of the Omicron variant and we are fully committed to supporting culture and events while they recover from the impact of the COVID – and we are aware of just how important they are to Scotland, and indeed the wider recovery from this pandemic.

“These additional funds will help protect the livelihoods of the people working in the sector – and allow us to give further support to freelancers, culture organisations, venues and our national performing companies.”

Creative Scotland’s Cancellation Fund for Creative Freelancers opens for applications on Thursday 6 January at 2pm.

Creative Scotland’s Chief Executive Iain Munro said:

“We are very grateful for this significant increase in emergency funding from the Scottish Government which reflects the severity of the challenges being faced by Scotland’s culture sector. 

“Our Cancellation Fund for Creative Freelancers is live, with applications open from 6 January, and more information on support for organisations and venues will follow as soon as possible.”

VisitScotland Director of Events Paul Bush said:

“The Scottish Government’s commitment of £19.8 million for Scotland’s events sector is welcome news as the industry continues to deal with the latest challenges presented by the pandemic and the Omicron variant.

“EventScotland is currently working with the Scottish Government and the Event Industry Advisory Group (EIAG) to determine the best way of distributing the funding to ensure we get support to those in need across the sector, and details on this will be shared shortly.”

Background

Funds worth £27 million for culture and £17 million for events were announced by the First Minister on 29 December.

This was additional to the £20 million of business support funding for culture and events that First Minister announced on 14 December.

With the utilisation of an additional £1 million of underspend from the existing events budget, this creates a total funding package of £65 million.

Since the start of the pandemic, the Scottish Government has provided £175 million to the culture, heritage and events sector.